12 Otherworldly Photos of the Heavens

Entropy in Talmine Bay in the Scottish Highlands, from dust to stardust. Decaying remains of a schooner on Talmine Beach with the Milky Way in the background.

Maciej Winiarczyk

Entropy in Talmine Bay in the Scottish Highlands, from dust to stardust. Decaying remains of a schooner on Talmine Beach with the Milky Way in the background.

Maciej Winiarczyk

My wonderful view of Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland during the intense aurora storm of Feb. 27, 2014. This photo was taken early evening at the height of the storm. It was possible to see the colored lights dancing in the sky. It's first time I've seen reds and pinks in the skies over Ireland.

Martina Gardiner

NGC3581 and its surrounding area.

Rakibul Syed

This is a 19 image stitched panorama taken at Monument Valley in the morning of March 29, 2014. You can see a comparison of the light pollution being generated by Kayenta on the right versus a regular night sky on the left side of the photo. You can see Mars just above Spica from Virgo at the right edge of the photo, Saturn is in the Libra constellation and just visible right of the galactic centre of the Milky Way is the head of the Scorpius constellation.

Bill Hinge

Venus rising above the horizon and reflecting on the sea with the Milky Way in full view on the south coast of the Isle of Wight. The sky is starting to lighten and take on a bluer hue due to the sunrise only an hour or so away.

Ainsley Bennett

The image uses the Hubble Palette. The SII data (sulfur) are mapped to the red channel, the Ha (hydrogen) to the green and the 0III (oxygen) data are mapped to the blue channel. IC 443, the Jellyfish Nebula, is a galactic supernova remnant, in the constellation Gemini that occurred 8,000 years ago. IC 443 spans about 65 light-years at an estimated distance of 5,000 light-years. Exposure Details: SII 585 min. Ha 540 min. OIII 810 min.

Bob Franke

A starry night in Skaftafell, Iceland.

Stephane Vetter

This photograph highlights the Milky Way, passing through a rural farm in Colombia.

Leonardo Delgado Ariza

The polar night, the aurora and the comet Pan-STARRS come to an end for this season. There is also a meteor or Iridium flare happening in the left side of the photo.

Rune Johan Engeboe

This image of the comet Lovejoy was taken near the Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary in India.

Abhinav Singhai

The Milky Way and an aurora are pictured outside Harstad, Norway.

Rune Johan Engeboe

The Milky Way and zodiacal light at Banba's Crown, Malin Head -- Ireland's most northerly point. This shot was taken an hour before moonrise. Looking westwards across the Atlantic Ocean there is no other light source except strong zodiacal light, which back-lights the scene wonderfully. This photo is a panorama comprising five portrait shots.